IAS Fundamental Physics Seminar Series - Understanding Neutrino Beams for the Precision Era of Neutrino Physics

Abstract
The study of neutrino properties has entered the precision era. Since the discovery of neutrino oscillations, long-baseline accelerator-based neutrino experiments have eagerly studied its phenomena. Nevertheless, fundamental questions underlying neutrino oscillations remain unanswered, particularly regarding mass-ordering and CP violation in the lepton sector. The present generation of experiments, including the T2K experiment in Japan, is reaching enough collected statistics to start being challenged by systematic uncertainties. The next generation of experiments, including the DUNE Experiment in the US, will increase the available statistics by a factor of 10-20.

This talk will first introduce the status of neutrino oscillation studies and identify leading uncertainties against the precision neutrino oscillation program. Second, the talk will review neutrino beam production and neutrino flux uncertainties using T2K as a representative example. The talk will then introduce a dedicated experiment, the NA61/SHINE experiment at CERN, to study hadron production of neutrino parents that allows better constraint of neutrino flux uncertainty. Lastly, the talk will briefly discuss the impact of improved flux knowledge on neutrino experiments.